J. Salsbury - Fighting to Forget

Flashbacks from the day he was taken away by the paramedics covered in his own blood blind me with panic. Would he do that again with no one around to save him? No, I can’t let that happen. He can’t die.

My hand twists the door handle, and I push into the bathroom without the conscious thought to do so. The room is big and filled with steam, so I can’t make out where he is other than following the sound of his soft whimpering. He must not have heard me come in over the rush of the shower.

The steam starts to clear, and I see the outline of a large stall with a glass door. A darkened area toward the bottom of the shower I identify immediately.

“Rex.”

He’s curled up, his arms wrapped around his shins, rocking. He doesn’t seem to notice me, so I move in closer.

And then I see it.

Blood.

Lots of it.

I drop to the tile floor and scurry to the glass, my hands splayed against the see-through barrier. Oh no!

“Oh, God, Rex, what did you do?”

He stops rocking but doesn’t look up.

“Rex. Talk to me.”

“I had to get them off.” Squeezing his legs in tight to his body, the blood from his arms creates red serpents that slither down his tattooed shins finally to be washed away. “They won’t stop touching me.”

Tears sting my cheeks. “They can’t hurt you anymore.”

“But they do.”

I’ve had to watch Rex suffer from a distance for too long, locked behind a door or shackled by our past. But those things can’t keep me from him anymore.

I pull open the shower door and climb inside with him. The water hits my back in a burning onslaught. I can see most of the damage is to his arms and neck, but I don’t know what he’s hiding in the parts I can’t see. I check for a knife, something sharp, but in my quick once over find nothing. I squint through the foggy air to his marked skin. Scratches. It looks as though he did this with his own hands.

With one objective, I move across the shower to him and wrap my arms around his body. He leans into my hold, but doesn’t let up on the grip he has on his shins, keeping himself in the safety of his little ball.

This is what I always wanted to do when we were kids: comfort him like this and let him cry into me, hoping that I could somehow carry some of his burden.

I don’t speak just hold him while the water pounds and the steam billows around us. He feels so tiny in my arms, fragile and precious, a life worth protecting. He shakes with every breath. Tiny whimpers fall from his lips. My mind searches for something that will help while my body gives in to the grief and slumps against his.

“Sing to me?” His voice is so soft I wouldn’t have heard it if I hadn’t been so close.

“Always.”

I hum “Silent Night” and his breathing calms.

Yes, it’s working. I continue but start to sing the words and he stops shaking. Over and over I sing the song until the water in the shower is cold and the steam is gone.

My clothes are wet and I’m shivering. But more importantly, I need to get him out of here so I can check his wounds. “I should check your arms.”

His body goes solid in an instant. He pulls back and shrugs off my arms. Slowly, he lifts his face and turns it toward me. It’s the first time I’ve seen his face since he took off from my house and one thing’s for sure.

This isn’t Rex.

His eyes are cold, dead like the glimpses I’ve seen before, but this is different. He’s looking at me like I’m a stranger, an unwelcome visitor who’s here to steal everything he cares about.

Isn’t that exactly what I am?

A small voice in my head says I’m worse. I’m the enemy. I broke into Rex’s life, and like a thief, I robbed his peace to covet as my own. My palms sweat and I break out in teeth-chattering chills.

He’s right. I’m no worse than my parents.

“Get out.” His voice is low and menacing.

I scoot backwards until my back hits the glass. “I’m not leaving you like this.”

“I said get out!” His shout echoes off the tiled walls.

He jumps up, and I take the few seconds to check his naked body for other wounds. His chest is scratched up along with his inner thighs, but it seems as if his arms and neck got the worst. He snags a towel off the rack and wraps it around his body. The white immediately turns pink in places from his blood, but he doesn’t seem concerned.

He stares me down and I scramble on the wet floor to stand. “I promise I’ll leave if you give me five minutes to explain.”

He stalks toward me, arms flexed, fists balled tight. “I don’t want to hear a thing you have to say. Ever.”

He leaves the bathroom, and I follow him into the part of his condo with a bed. He reaches into a drawer and pulls out a pair of pajama pants, sliding them on.

Ignoring me, he manages to completely avoid my existence.

I swallow and stand tall, a little cold and very confused. What happened in the shower? He let me hold him and sing to him, but now he wants me to leave?

I can’t. I’m too weak to live without him, not strong enough to let him go.

And even though he says he doesn’t care what I have to say, he’s going to fucking hear it before I get my ass dragged out of here in handcuffs.

“Five minutes. Can you give me that?”

His eyes work back and forth between mine, but he doesn’t say anything.

“My parents were hideous people. You think I’m just as bad as them, but I didn’t know what they were doing until after you left.” I take a step closer and he spears me with a glare. “The box. Our secret. Do you remember?”

Recognition flashes through his turbulent aqua stare.

“I found the box. Once I realized the”—I shake my head, even now unable to speak the words—“abuse, I confronted my parents, Rex. I buried the box in my backyard so they couldn’t destroy it, and then I threatened to go to the cops with what I knew.” A shiver of terror races up my spine, remembering my parents’ idea of punishment. To this day I have no idea how long I was locked in that closet with nothing but a bucket and a box of cereal. “They spooked, locked me up in a closet and ran. Mexico or Canada, I have no idea. They just . . . left.”

His eyebrows drop low, and I can’t tell if it’s concern or distrust he’s feeling.

Either way, he’s quiet and listening. “It was dark and silent for so long, and then one day I heard noises like my house was being ransacked. Men, a few of them, were yelling back and forth, tossing furniture, looking for something. And then they found it. They found me.”

“Who?” His voice shakes with apprehension or emotion; it’s impossible to read.

“The man responsible for your abuse. The man my parents worked for.” I swallow hard, so scared to finally offload the secret I’ve been lugging around since that summer day that changed my life. My eyes burn and fill with tears, and my chest cramps to hold back the punishing blow. But we’ve come this far, and I have nothing else to lose.

“Rex, it was your father.”

Rex

Impossible. She’s lying. She has to be. Everything about her is a lie: her black hair, fake eyes, and made-up stories about finding peace.

She’s not my Gia.

She’s a con artist.

I want her the hell out of my life. “Fuck you.”

She winces. “Rex, listen to what I’m saying.” Her eyes are wide, perfecting her dramatic performance. “Your biological father—”

“Get out of my house.” My teeth grind until they ache, eyes burn with barely concealed rage.

She shakes her head and drops her chin. “You don’t believe me.”

“Why would I? You’ve lied about everything since the day we met.” I move toward her, ready to shake her or throw her ass out.

She jumps but doesn’t waver from her firm stance before me. “I know things have been hard for—”

“You think you know what I’ve been through? Because you read a few fucking scraps of paper?”

“No, if you’d let me—”

“You’ve done enough.” The fingers of the past slide up my back and circle my neck. My lungs constrict, stomach lurches. I rip my hands through my hair. “I can feel them.” Hands everywhere. Groping. “I can smell them . . . on my skin . . . in the air. I’ll never be free of this.” I can’t breathe. Get them off. Leave me alone.

I throw my fist. Glass shatters. The burn of torn flesh bites into my knuckles. I’m panting, fighting for breath past the flooding memories. The mirror above my dresser lies in a shimmering pile.

I brace my weight against my dresser and drop my head. Dried blood on my arms, fresh blood on my fists. I’m not that boy anymore. I’m not.

“Rex.” She sniffles through her whispered call.

I ball my fists to keep my hands off her. I can’t hit a woman. I won’t.

My head tilts and I spear her with a glare. “Get. Out!”

She crosses her arms at her chest, curls into herself, and shivers as tears stream down her face. The T-shirt I wore to her house is draped over her body, wet and clinging. Dark hair is plastered to her neck and shoulders.

She’s so different from the little girl of my memories. I’ll never see her as anything else but the hand that brought me through hell, the hand that kept me company but never pulled me from the flames.